Fuel Pizza

The Facts:

Pizza: Fuel Pizza

Business Category: Regional Chain (10 locations in Washington DC and Charlotte, NC)

Website: http://www.fuelpizza.com/

Location: 500 S. College St. in Charlotte, NC (across College St. from the Convention Center)

Date of Review Visit: August 6, 2014

What I Ordered: 1 slice of extreme (all meat) pizza and a fountain drink

Price: $5.72

The Micro:

Crust: Like Pie in the Sky, the first of my two downtown Charlotte pizza indulgences of the day, Fuel Pizza makes New York style pizza.  The crust has nice thickness and texture, but the taste is a little stale and bland.  I wonder how long that slice of pizza was sitting in the display case before I came along and ordered it….  Score: 8/10.

Sauce: The sauce has light quantity, as you would expect for a New York style pizza, but it seems almost pasted on.  This sauce has no spices to flavor it, but it does have a good tomato-ful taste.  Score: 8/10.

Cheese: Fuel Pizza does not use a lot of cheese, but the cheese that is on this pizza is baked to a nice golden brown.  The cheese is not greasy, and it has pretty good flavor.  Score: 8/10.

Toppings: The toppings should be the strength of an all meat pizza, but they are not in this case.  All toppings appear in good quantity, but all of them have very little flavor.  The toppings just sit there, and that’s not good.  Score: 5/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The dining area at Fuel Pizza features lots of historic oil and gas signs and antiques.  Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz of American Pickers would love this dining room.  The service was passable but nonchalant.  The pizza’s appearance is OK except for the low quantity of cheese.  Score: 8/10.

Value: True this is an all meat pizza, but I only ordered one slice, and I got a small slice at that.  You can get 2 slices of pizza and a drink at Pie in the Sky just a few blocks away for about the same price.  Score: 3/10.

Taste: This pizza does not have much taste.  Everything from the cheese to the sauce to the toppings is pretty non-descript.  Score: 13/20.

The Final Judgment:

Fuel Pizza makes a passable product, but there are better pizzas around.  That statement holds whether you look from the value or quality perspective.  Score: 53/80.

Pie in the Sky Pizza in Charlotte, NC

The Facts:

Pizza: Pie in the Sky Pizza

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: http://www.pieintheskycharlotte.com/

Location: 320 South Tryon Street in Charlotte, NC (in Latta Arcade)

Date of Review Visit: August 6, 2014

What I Ordered: 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and a fountain drink

Price: $5.97

The Micro:

Crust: Pie in the Sky Pizza (ironically located on the ground floor of Latta Arcade) features a nice New York style crust.  Unlike most crusts of this style, this crust does not fold because they reheat the pizza slices when you order them.  Thus, the crust comes out crispy, but it still has a nice fresh taste.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: The sauce appears in lighter than average quantity, which is typical for New York style pizza.  The sauce is not overspiced, and it fits well with the rest of the pizza.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: The cheese has decent taste, but it is very greasy.  Grease runs off of the pizza when you lean it sideways.  This area needs some work.  Score: 5/10.

Toppings: The slices of pepperoni are thin, but they have just the right amount of spiciness.  Also, the pepperoni appears in good quantity.  Overall, there is more to like here than to not like.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: Due to the downtown location, space is at a premium. Thus, the restaurant gives the feel of trying to cram as much as possible into as little space as possible.  There are some humorous old-timey signs on the wall.  The pizza’s appearance is passable but not exceptional.  On the other hand, the men behind the counter remembered me on only my second visit.  That fact may be due to my awesomely handsome looks (tongue firmly planted in cheek), but it is probably due to their excellent service.  Score: 8/10.

Value: Pie in the Sky’s lunch special made the value very good.  The drink was too small relative to the food, but this is a pizza blog, not a Dr. Pepper blog.  Score: 9/10.

Taste: The cheese ensures that this pizza is too greasy to earn a high score in this category.  That’s too bad, because otherwise the taste is well-balanced and pretty good.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Pie in the Sky is slightly better than your typical downtown pizzeria, and it is way better than the infamous Sbarro.  I recommend coming here at least occasionally.  Score: 63/80.

Pizza 9 in New Mexico

The Facts:

Pizza: Pizza 9

Business Category: Regional Chain (13 locations in north-central New Mexico)

Website: http://pizzanine.com/

Location: 1965 Cerrillos Rd. in Santa Fe, NM

Date of Review Visit: July 16, 2014

What I Ordered: Medium (12”) all meat pizza with 2 fountain drinks

Price: $19.47 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: True to its advertising, Pizza 9 makes Chicago-style deep dish pizzas.  The crust is about an inch thick, but it is far from the thickest crust I have ever eaten.  This crust is definitely better than any of the so-called pan crusts offered by the national pizza chains.  The spices sprinkled on the crust are an added bonus.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: The sauce appears in light but passable quantity.  The bits of onions in the sauce are a major turn-off for me: I do not like finding chunks of anything in my sauce.  Like the crust, the sauce is also highly spiced.  Score: 5/10.

Cheese: The cheese appears in excellent quantity with some spilling over onto the crust.  The taste of the cheese is rather indistinctive, but it is certainly not bad.  Score: 7/10.

Toppings: All toppings appear in good quantity, and the huge chunks of sausage fit perfectly with the robust nature of this pizza.  Unfortunately, the spiciness of the sausage somewhat overpowers the taste of the other toppings.  That not withstanding, the toppings are a strength of this pizza.  Score: 9/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza looks like the stomach-filling Chicago-style pizza it is.  The dining room has a high-energy party style atmosphere complete with video games.  The service was fantastic: they even unlocked the back door to let us in when we parked on the wrong side of the building.  Score: 9/10.

Value: The price is high for good but not great quality pizza, but you need to remember that 1) this was dinner for 2, not 1 like usual for me, and 2) this is an all meat pizza.  Their party packages would help on the price side for groups.  As is for my order, the price/quality ratio grades out about average.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: The spices in the crust, sauce, and sausage add up to give the pizza a slightly overspiced taste.  Otherwise, the taste is pretty good.  Score: 16/20.

The Final Judgment:

Pizza 9 is not the best Chicago-style pizza I have ever eaten, but it is pretty good.  I recommend coming here at least on occasion.  Score: 60/80.